Rick Pitino waved a net after Louisville beat Michigan to win the 2013 men’s NCAA basketball tournament. U of L is waiting on word from the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee on whether that 2013 NCAA title will be “vacated” due to the “escorts/strippers for recruits in the basketball dorm” scandal at the university. David J. PhillipAssociated Press

Rick Pitino waved a net after Louisville beat Michigan to win the 2013 men’s NCAA basketball tournament. U of L is waiting on word from the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee on whether that 2013 NCAA title will be “vacated” due to the “escorts/strippers for recruits in the basketball dorm” scandal at the university. David J. PhillipAssociated Press

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The near-despair emitting from many Louisville Cardinals backers since last June argues otherwise.

It was last June 15 when the NCAA Committee on Infractions made it apparent that Louisville’s 2013 NCAA championship — not to mention its 2012 Final Four trip and 123 total men’s hoops victories overall — was in jeopardy as a result of the “escorts for sex parties for recruits in the basketball dorm” scandal that engulfed the Cards’ program.

In the distress in The Ville over the prospect of a title banner coming down, one age-old question has been settled:

A “vacation” — essentially the removal of official NCAA sanction of a school’s athletics achievement(s) — actually can be a penalty with sharp teeth.

If you had looked in on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, Dan Dakich, the one-time college basketball head coach turned ESPN college hoops analyst and polarizing Indianapolis radio talk show host, had the U of L sports universe in a tizzy.

After teasing major Louisville basketball news for hours, Dakich finally claimed he had a “close friend” with a “source in the room” when the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee allegedly rendered its final ruling on U of L’s appeal in the case. According to the “source of Dakich’s friend,” the NCAA has decided to officially vacate the 2013 NCAA title Rick Pitino won at U of L while also fining the school $15 million.

A Louisville spokesman denounced the report from Dakich — the one-time Indiana Hoosiers basketball player, Bowling Green State University head coach and IU interim head coach — as “pure speculation” while noting U of L has yet to receive final word from the NCAA.

University of Louisville Director of Media Relations John Karman, left, said a report last week by an Indianapolis sports radio talk show host that the NCAA was going to vacate U of L’s 2013 men’s basketball NCAA title and fine the university $15 million as its final ruling in the “escorts for recruits in the men’s basektball dorm” at the school was “pure speculation.”

Timothy D. Easley Associated Press

The fact that an Indianapolis radio talk show host was the top trending topic in Louisville on Wednesday afternoon in the time leading up to Dakich’s “news” reveal was telling. It’s just the latest example of how much the prospect of their school becoming the first ever to have to take down an NCAA championship banner bothers U of L backers.

No one who understands college basketball fans in Kentucky believes that.

In the Commonwealth, men’s NCAA basketball titles are the holy grail of sports achievements.

With all the resources and emphasis Louisville has put into men’s college hoops across the decades, it only has three NCAA title banners hanging in the KFC Yum Center.

To be ordered to take one of those down while losing official sanction of that 2013 championship would be a spear into the U of L heart.

Being the first school to “vacate” a national championship is a punishment that will have legs deep into the future, too.

It’s easy to imagine national broadcasters working U of L games in coming decades on ESPN3 or Amazon or Hulu — or whatever medium will arise to disseminate live sports programming — long mentioning the men’s hoops NCAA title Louisville forfeited.

About Mark Story

I am a native Kentuckian, a graduate of North Hardin High School (Radcliff) and the University of Kentucky. I came to the Herald-Leader in the glamorous position of agate clerk on Aug. 27, 1990. Since that time, I’ve worked as small-college beat reporter, sports enterprise/investigative reporter and, since August, 2001, as a full-time sports columnist.